2007 Château Léoville Las Cases, St Julien, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
A strong effort for the vintage, the 2007 Léoville Las Cases offers up aromas of dark fruits, burning embers, cedar box and toasty oak. Medium to full-bodied, with a fleshy mid-palate, powdery tannins and good length on the finish, it displays a sweetness of fruit and completeness that are rare in 2007.
Drink 2017 - 2035
William Kelley, Wine Advocate (August 2022)
Candied on the nose, inevitably light on the palate, milk chocolate and blackcurrant fruit. Dry, soft and pretty middling all round.
Richard Hemming MW, JancisRobinson.com (June 2018)
Among the more tannic and backward wines of the vintage, the 2007 is another outstanding effort from this estate. Already somewhat closed, it is a candidate for one of the longest lived wines of the vintage. Beautifully pure black currant and black cherry fruit interwoven with notions of cedar and wood are found in this medium to full-bodied, structured, masculine-styled St.-Julien. The attack reveals sweetness and softness, but then the wine shuts down. It will benefit from 2-3 years of cellaring, and should keep for 15 or more.
Drink 2012 - 2027
Robert M. Parker, Jr., Wine Advocate (April 2010)
A deeper register of fruit than many of the 2007s on display, this is one where you would never pick the vintage blind. Here we get wet stones sliding up against slate and liquorice, dark bristling cassis and bramble fruit. There is just so much hold and confidence, and yet juiciness. No need to open this one yet.
Jane Anson, Decanter.com (February 2017)
About this WINE
Chateau Leoville Las Cases
Château Léoville Las Cases is one of the largest and oldest classified growths in the Médoc. It is the largest of the 3 Léoville properties and now without doubt the leading estate in St-Julien.
Léoville Las Cases's 97 hectares of vineyards are superbly sited on gravelly-clay soils with the largest plot being surrounded by a stone wall and stretching between the village of St-Julien and Château Latour. The wine is a Cabernet Sauvignon dominated blend (65%), and is matured in oak barriques (70-80% new) for 18 months.
Léoville Las Cases produces arguably the most exotically perfumed wine in the Médoc and this can be partially attributed to the must being fermented at lower than average temperatures, which leads to its youthful aromatic richness being retained. On the palate it is powerful and concentrated and marvellously well-balanced.
Léoville Las Cases is a 2ème Cru Classé in name but produces 1er Cru Classé quality wines.
St Julien
St Julien is the smallest of the "Big Four" Médoc communes. Although, without any First Growths, St Julien is recognised to be the most consistent of the main communes, with several châteaux turning out impressive wines year after year.
St Julien itself is much more of a village than Pauillac and almost all of the notable properties lie to its south. Its most northerly château is Ch. Léoville Las Cases (whose vineyards actually adjoin those of Latour in Pauillac) but, further south, suitable vineyard land gives way to arable farming and livestock until the Margaux appellation is reached.
The soil is gravelly and finer than that of Pauillac, and without the iron content which gives Pauillac its stature. The homogeneous soils in the vineyards (which extend over a relatively small area of just over 700 hectares) give the commune a unified character.
The wines can be assessed as much by texture as flavour, and there is a sleek, wholesome character to the best. Elegance, harmony and perfect balance and weight, with hints of cassis and cedar, are what epitomise classic St Julien wines. At their very best they combine Margaux’s elegance and refinement with Pauillac’s power and substance.
Ch. Léoville Las Cases produces arguably the most sought-after St Julien, and in any reassessment of the 1855 Classification it would almost certainly warrant being elevated to First Growth status.
Recommended Châteaux: Ch. Léoville Las Cases, Ch.Léoville Barton, Ch Léoville Poyferré, Ch. Ducru-Beaucaillou, Ch Langoa Barton, Ch Gruaud Larose, Ch. Branaire-Ducru, Ch. Beychevelle
Cabernet Sauvignon Blend
Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.
In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.
In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and Australia.
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Description
Owner Jean-Hubert Delon has described Las Cases as `a First Growth for wine drinkers' and his 2007 has lived up royally to its billing. Arguably the best wine in the Médoc (yes, including the First Growths) its concentration, fleshiness and complexity are atypical for the vintage. Restrained blackcurrant, vanilla, minerals and coffee on the nose act as an amuse bouche for the multi-layered, incredibly elegant palate of intense cassis, dark chocolate and very, very fine tannins. Nipping at the heels of its 2005 and 2006, this seamless, focused Las Cases is, for 2007, nothing short of a masterpiece.
Berry Bros. & Rudd
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